He was in his car on Witch Mountain Road, near Mount Charleston, Nevada, about 25 miles from Las Vegas. Sherman had been shot in the head.

The Clark County coroner's office determined that Sherman had killed himself. It was five days before his 48th birthday.

News of Sherman's suicide ripped through Twitter and the technology blogs. His death left thousands aching and confused. He left no note. His last Facebook message was written by his wife:

“This is Jody’s final post, and it isn’t coming from Jody. He’s gone. This is not a bit of his wonderful twisted humor. This is sad and real and forever. He didn’t say goodbye to anyone because he knew he couldn’t. So I’m saying it for him. If you are reading this it’s because you are connected to Jody in some way. He loved you, respected you, admired you, valued your presence in his life, or felt some combination of any or all of these things. And he would want each and every one of you to know and understand exactly that. Please post anything you have to say to or about Jody here.”

Just a few days after Sherman's suicide, his company, Ecomom, had a board meeting in which his co-founder and the board found the startup in a startling state.

A couple of weeks later, Ecomom closed its doors. The prosaic reason: The company's liabilities were greater than its assets.

Put more simply, Ecomom was broke. The 28-person startup — which had just raised $5 million six months earlier and more than $12 million total — ran out of cash. And no one left at the company seemed to know where it had gone.

Over the past six weeks, we have interviewed more than a dozen people close to Jody Sherman and his startup about what happened in those final months. They're colleagues, friends, advisors, investors and confidantes. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity.

All are shocked by what happened. Many feel duped. And everyone was left wondering:

Who was Jody Sherman?

And what happened in the last few months of his life that caused it to end so tragically?